


All I Can See Is You

by acercrea



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, And a bit of fluff, Angst, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Disassociation, Episode AU: s04e07 Weaponized, Fluff is my brand, Getting Together, Idiots admitting their feelings, Let me know if I missed any tags, M/M, Scrubbing assassin blood off of his face, Stiles Stilinski Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stiles Stilinski is Derek Hale's Anchor, Tags Are Hard, Thinking about trauma, because it is me, but they don't call it that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 17:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18298880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acercrea/pseuds/acercrea
Summary: Stiles had a really tough day. He almost died after all. That wasn't the weird part. They say when you are about to die your life flashes before your eyes. The weird part is that Stiles didn't see the life he had already lived. He saw what he didn't realize he was giving up. And apparently he is giving up a life with Derek.





	All I Can See Is You

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is an alternate canon piece set after episode 4x07, Weaponized. Stiles and Malia were not a couple in this, Derek and Braeden aren’t going to happen, the discussion of Derek losing his powers happens here and not 2 episodes down the line. If any of this isn’t to your liking you have my permission to not read.
> 
> I have always wanted to write a follow up to this episode, it is an important episode for Stiles and a difficult one mental health wise. He resigns himself to dying for his friends, you can see it when he closes his eyes, and that takes a toll on your psyche. And I like the idea that Derek would be the one to check up on Stiles because they are both damaged in similar ways.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own anything associated with Teen Wolf and I’m not making any money off of this, it is just for fun.

Stiles was standing under the spray of the scalding water, not feeling it for his numbness, trying to wash the day off of himself, replaying the confrontation with The Chemist over and over in his head, his hands getting steadily shakier, his breath coming quicker with every minute he tried to convince himself that he was still alive and that the blood on his face that he was trying to scrub away wasn’t his own. Trying to forget that once again he had stared into the abyss and had been pulled back at literally the last possible second. Trying not to wonder how many more times he was going to have to do that and how long he had before he didn’t get saved.

Because he knew that as long as this was Scott’s world, it would be his too, and he had accepted that a long time ago, and with that acceptance came the knowledge that he would run out of luck someday. It was risky, after all, being human and trying to keep up with the super natural. But sometimes he wondered if there was some lonely corner of the world that they could find that wouldn’t have the constant threat of hunters, Kanima’s, Alpha packs, Nogitsune’s, or assassins to contend with not to mention whatever else was out there that hadn’t found them yet. He liked to imagine them all there, the wolves going out to catch game that Stiles cooked on a huge wood burning oven; Lydia taking some online PHD course in some obscure Math field; Derek eventually building on a new room for all of his books, one entire wall of which devoted to books on the supernatural, because he finally had time to do nothing but read and discovered that he was a bit of a hoarder when he was allowed to put down roots; Kira weapons training in the yard not because she had to, but because she wanted to; Liam and Malia learning to meditate from Derek so that they stop breaking out and running wild on the full moons, being found naked half way to the nearest town by random hikers no longer funny after the fourth time; Scott opening his own vet clinic slash wild life rehab center in town and saving every animal that he can; Stiles himself learning how to be an Emissary from Deaton over Skype.

It was a wonderful fantasy to lose himself in after a rough day fighting the supernatural world that seemed to be rejecting Stiles in a violent fashion, and he had been retreating to the fantasy more and more often lately, often enough that the disassociation would worry him if his real life hadn’t turned into a horror movie.

So, it wasn’t surprising that when he made the decision to stand his ground when The Chemist pressed the barrel of the gun into his forehead, deciding that if his friends were going to die today then he would take the secret of where they were hiding with him, that he saw a flash of that world in his head. The surprising thing was that he didn’t see any of the things he normally saw, the pot of stew cooking on the stove, he and Lydia studying in the main room on their laptops, the clang of Kira’s sword on a practice dummy mixing with the wolves’ meditation white noise, the sound of Scott’s bike coming up the drive starting to grow on top.

What he saw was Derek.

He saw Derek waking up to find Stiles watching at him sleep because he looked so ridiculously content and chuckling while leaning over to kiss his nose while wishing him a good morning, Derek’s hair adorably sleep-mussed and his face creased from the pillow.

He saw them making cookies at the long counter in the kitchen at the fantasy house, swatting Derek’s hand when he tried to reach a finger into the dough to sneak a taste, his rebuttal drying up in his throat and consumed by the flames of lust that sprung up at the sight of Derek sucking his own finger into his mouth, before hastily shoving the dough into the fridge to set, telling Derek that they had at least 45 minutes to kill while the dough chills, Derek’s own eyes filling with lust as he picked him up and carried him out of the kitchen.

He saw lazy afternoons with his head in Derek’s lap while they both read, Derek absently threading his fingers through his hair.

The worst one he saw in the brief moment he closed his eyes during the countdown. He saw Derek laying red carnations and a large white flower he didn’t recognize on a tombstone, apologizing over and over again for not being there to protect him, for letting this happen, tears running down his cheeks, his voice broken by sobs.

Even now, he saw a new moment every time he shut his eyes. He saw midday screaming matches, late night makeups, electric and mundane moments alike, all of the things he didn’t realize he could be giving up with the decision to die in the school.

Stiles was startled out of his thoughts by a knock on the bathroom door.

“I’ll be out in a minute dad, I just need to finish up,” he called, realizing as he gave his face one more good scrub with the washcloth that while he was musing the hot water had run out and the spray was lukewarm at best.

He hopped out and got dressed as quickly as he could, still running a towel over his hair as he exited the steamy room, calling down the hall with his now practiced forced cheerfulness, “It’s all yours, Pops, but disclaimer, if you were looking to take a shower you may want to wait at least 20 minutes, because I kind of used all of the hot water trying to scrub assassin blood off my fa-”

He stopped dead in his doorway when he saw Derek sitting in his desk chair, words dying in his throat, his hands starting to shake again instantly, breath leaving his lungs in a huge rush, his knees buckling as he slumped to the floor clumsily but somehow not hurting himself.

Derek was by his side in an instant, tipping his chin up so he could look him in the eyes, one hand on his wrist, unnecessarily checking the pulse that he could hear in Stiles’ chest, a look of thinly veiled concern on his face.

“Stiles, hey, you are ok, I need you to focus on me, can you do that? You are breathing too fast; can you match your breathing to mine? In, out, Stiles stay with me, just look at me and breathe with me,” Derek requested, the spots dancing in Stiles’ vision making him realize he was having a panic attack, about to pass out from his erratic breathing. He worked to match his breathing to Derek’s, the spots slowly receding, doing his best to ignore the way everywhere Derek was touching him felt like it was on fire, the gentlest flame rubbing circles absently on his wrist, the hand under his chin migrating to be a smoldering heat on his shoulder, grounding him in this place, here with Derek, trying to cement the conviction he had been fighting since he opened his eyes to see The Chemist fall over and realized the blood on his face wasn’t his own.

He was in love with Derek Hale. Sitting here on the floor in his room, Derek filling his senses the way he was, the feeling that Stiles had been fighting overtook him and became almost as tangible as Derek’s hand on his shoulder, the warm, earthy smell that Stiles associated with pack and home that was surrounding him. Everything about Derek comforts him in a way that he should have known that he was in love with Derek a long time ago. He can feel himself getting lost in Derek’s eyes, even as he tries not to and only focus on slowing his breathing down.

After several minutes Stiles managed to get himself under control and slumped backwards with a sigh, eyes closed and head falling back to rest against the door frame.

“Better?” Derek asked, concern on his face as he gave Stiles’ wrist a comforting squeeze.

“Yeah, thanks,” Stiles replied, standing up and grabbing his discarded towel, running it over his hair one more time before hanging it on the door handle to dry and walking over to his bed, straightening out his blankets before sitting down, his hands twitching as he looked for something to do with them.

“Are you sure you’re ok? You are fidgeting more than you normally do and you seem anxious,” Derek asked from his spot on the floor.

“I never said I was ok, I said I was better. That was relative to when I walked in the door and had a panic attack. I haven’t been ok since Heather disappeared from her parent’s basement,” Stiles replied, pulling his sleeves over his hands.

“Heather was the first of the Darach sacrifices?” Derek questioned with a frown on his face.

“Heather was someone I grew up with, she was one of the few people left who had known my mom, we had play dates together at each other’s houses. But yeah. She was also the first sacrifice,” Stiles answered.

“That is a long time to not be ok,” Derek commented.

“Yeah, but we are still in this. We haven’t had a break since Jackson left for England. I am surprisingly resilient for a human, once we have a minute to actually breathe, I think I can be ok again. I somehow figured out how to be ok after my mom died. I can do it again,” Stiles responded, only half believing the words.

“Stiles, it’s ok to not be ok. To not know if you are ever going to be ok again,” Derek assured him, wincing as he got up to go over to the bed.

“You know it is cheating to use your werewolf hearing to catch me in a lie, and we will get back to that, but first we are discussing why a werewolf with super human healing abilities is wincing,” Stiles ordered as Derek sat down next to him.

“Well, let me just say that you aren’t the only one who had a gun pointed at them today and I’m glad that I was only grazed,” Derek shrugged.

“Why aren’t you healing if it was just a graze, you’ve been shot way worse before and it’s only ever been an issue if it was a wolfsbane bullet that stayed in your body,” Stiles reminded him.

“Yes, but that was before whatever Kate did to me,” Derek countered reluctantly.

“Wait, I thought that was over, your eyes turned brown again, but you were fine other than that. What else is happening?” Stiles demanded.

“Nothing, I am fine, Stiles,” Derek insisted.

“Don’t bullshit me Derek, your name is the last cipher key. The first two names were Allison and Aiden, both of whom are dead. Are you dying?” Stiles questioned, his blood running cold at the idea.

“Maybe,” Derek conceded.

“Maybe? What the actual fuck, Derek? You are not allowed to die, I forbid it, we can fix this, what else is happening, I need to write a list so we can research. Gold eyes, not able to heal as fast, what else?” Stiles prompted, looking for a pen and paper.

“My eyes aren’t gold, they are green,” Derek countered, trying to deflect the conversation one last time.

“Green? What do green eyes on a werewolf mean?” Stiles mused, fumbling in his bedside drawer for the pen he threw in there last night after finishing his homework.

“Nothing. Werewolves don’t have green eyes. Only humans do,” Derek replied with a sigh.

“What?” Stiles asked, pausing his search to look back at Derek.

“I am human. Smell, strength, speed, healing, all of my werewolf powers are gone, and I am a human who is on a supernatural Deadpool with a $15 million payout next to his name. I would have been taken out by an assassin today if it weren’t for Satomi. I was very aware of the fact that I am not as durable as I normally am before I found out that a banshee thinks I’m not going to survive this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up, I just know better than to bet against a banshee,” Derek shrugged, staring down at his hands. “Ow, that hurts, stop,” Derek protested when Stiles started hitting him with the book that had been on his nightstand.

“Stop talking like that, you idiot, I am going to find a way to save you if it is the last thing I do, you stupid Sourwolf, I’m not ready to lose you, not when I just figured out that I-” Stiles stilled as he cut himself, his eyes as wide as saucers as he realized what he just said.

“Stiles? What did you just figure out?” Derek asked. Stiles just shook his head in response, so Derek continued, “No, you aren’t allowed to do that, I just confessed that I think I am going to die, if this is important you need to tell me.”

“It’s nothing,” Stiles insisted, hoping against hope that if Derek no longer had werewolf hearing that he wouldn’t hear the lie in his words.

“Stiles, I don’t need my super hearing to know that you are lying. I know how to calm you down when you are having a panic attack, I knew that you were lying when you said that you believed you could be ok again when this all calmed down, and I know there is something you aren’t telling me. Whatever it is you can trust me with it. It isn’t going to change anything,” Derek insisted.

“But it will change everything, Derek,” Stiles interrupted, his voice breaking a bit with the sudden outburst. “You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die? Well, I didn’t see my life, I saw you. I saw the life I didn’t know I wanted, the one I was giving up by not letting The Chemist win. I saw us reading on rainy afternoons, I saw us making dinner together, I saw you laying red carnations and a giant white flower on my grave. I realized in that moment that I am in love with you and the worst part is that I can still see it. I close my eyes and I see us having a fight about whose turn it is to do dishes, I open them and see us making up after one of us does something stupid and almost gets killed by the next big bad. I drove myself home and kept reaching over expecting you to be in the car next to me. I was scrubbing assassin blood off of my face for an hour and watching you cuddle with me on the couch, and gently run your fingers through my hair as you leaned in to kiss me, and wrap your arms around me as we drifted off to sleep.”

The anger was seeping out of Stiles, replaced steadily by resignation, his voice getting quieter as he continued. “It just keeps coming, and I will add this to the list of things that I compartmentalize until I can deal with it, but for now it is just painful. All I see now is you,” Stiles whispered, turning his head down so that he wouldn’t have to see the rejection he knew was coming from Derek. This was too much, Derek was never going to look at him the same way again. He had crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

“Stiles, you’re my anchor,” Derek confessed just as quietly as Stiles had, taking Stiles’ face in his hands when the younger mand turned to look at him in shock and kissing him, the fire that had been there when they touched earlier spreading and consuming them. Stiles reached up, plunging one hand into Derek’s hair as the other wound around his waist and pulled Derek closer. Their tongues were warring, the burn of Derek’s stubble oddly pleasant on Stiles’ skin. Stiles gasped when Derek migrated to his neck, sucking and biting little marks into the sensitive flesh, and if he could have focused on anything else Stiles would have been concerned about explaining the marks tomorrow, but all he could focus on was the way Derek was making him feel, his mind blissfully occupied for the first time since The Chemist found him in that classroom earlier.

Derek’s words didn’t catch up to Stiles until they pulled away to catch their breath a few minutes later. “Wait, I’m your anchor? When did that happen? How did that happen?” Stiles asked.

“Oh, well that is kind of a funny story. You know how my anchor used to be anger?” Derek asked, his thumb burning a circle on the back of Stiles’ hand. “Well, when we met nothing made me angrier than you. Here was this useless, fragile human, running around with a bat like it was going to save him from the world he had thrown himself into because his best friend got bitten. It annoyed me that you took unnecessary risks, and I kept having to save you, then on top of that you made me a wanted criminal? I was furious with you so I used that fury for control, and it worked. It really worked.”

“Nice,” Stiles snorted, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not done. Somehow, along the way, some time in between the day in the pool and when Boyd died, that changed. Before I knew it, and without my knowledge, I was still using you for my anchor but not because you made me angry. I had started to depend on you, you were always the one who never gave up on coming up with an answer that meant we all came home, the one who stayed up all night reading obscure texts to try to find any weakness that could be exploited against the current big bad, even if you had been studying all day for a test, the one who did everything you could to construct the best plan based on any information you could find. You had become a friend, and then pack, all without my realizing it. It wasn’t until I had to face the idea of losing you to the Nogitsune that I recognized that there was no longer anything platonic about how I felt about you. I had fallen in love with you unconsciously and resigned myself to never being able to act on it,” Derek trailed off.

“Martyr,” Stiles challenged, rolling his eyes.

“Says the guy who stepped into the barrel of a gun so that an assassin would lose out on $35 million less than 6 hours ago,” Derek countered. “It is no secret that people I love tend to either turn evil or wind up dead and I can’t lose you, Stiles. I was willing to let myself be unhappy to keep you safe, but something tells me that isn’t an option anymore, now that you know how I feel.”

“No shit it isn’t an option. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t regret never telling me that you love me if I had died. Just because you had never told me wouldn’t have changed the fact that you loved me. And as a bonus I already turned evil. Didn’t stick. So as far as I’m concerned that’s a non-issue,” Stiles remarked, smacking him playfully in the stomach, prompting a groan from Derek.

“I was wrong, you aren’t going to die, you are going to kill me,” Derek gritted out through his teeth, holding his side where he had been shot.

“Sorry, I’m not used to you being so fragile,” Stiles commented, lacing his fingers into Derek’s free hand, a twinkle in his eye.

“I don’t like that look,” Derek warned.

“You know, you should probably lie down, most humans wouldn’t be up and around so quick after getting shot. And if you don’t think that is a good idea, I can think of a couple of ways to bring you around to my way of thinking,” Stiles mentioned, gently pushing Derek back so he was lying on the bed with his feet still on the floor and Stiles leaning over him.

“Oh yeah, you are definitely going to kill me,” Derek commented, his eyes fluttering shut.

“There are worse ways to go,” Stiles argued against Derek’s lips, swallowing any rebuttal the older man had by sealing their lips together again.

 

A/N: Find me on [Tumblr](http://acercrea.tumblr.com/).

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it, I have been working on this for a very long time and I am just happy to be able to post it. Please leave a kudos if you liked it and if you loved it please leave me a comment and let me know what resonated with you. We can have a discussion about it. It will be great.


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